Hi, I will be sitting advanced stage (all 3 exams) in a months time (eek!) and just wanted some advice.

I have currently just been looking through the Kaplan (tuition provider) study notes and haven't looked at the ICAEW study material, is it worth looking at ICAEW on your experience? Just struggling to find time to do this and want to get onto question practice as soon as possible.

In my experience it's worth looking through the ICAEW stuff in compiling your file for TI, because a) some of the pages are very good summaries of all the bits & bobs you need to know (esp tax) and b) because Kaplan doesn't cover everything in class so it's worth going through & pulling out anything that isn't covered.

When I was putting my file together I did just this, basically hacked apart both ICAEW and Kaplan notes and made my own from them to combine the useful bits of ICAEW with the more straightforward bits from Kaplan.

You need to get your file sorted in the next week or so and then move on to question practice, when you start revision course you will get 2 big question banks - one for BC, one for BR - each with about 40-50 questions in, so you'll need to focus on cracking through those in the last 2 weeks before the exams.

(Original post by annah583)
In my experience it's worth looking through the ICAEW stuff in compiling your file for TI, because a) some of the pages are very good summaries of all the bits & bobs you need to know (esp tax) and b) because Kaplan doesn't cover everything in class so it's worth going through & pulling out anything that isn't covered.

When I was putting my file together I did just this, basically hacked apart both ICAEW and Kaplan notes and made my own from them to combine the useful bits of ICAEW with the more straightforward bits from Kaplan.

You need to get your file sorted in the next week or so and then move on to question practice, when you start revision course you will get 2 big question banks - one for BC, one for BR - each with about 40-50 questions in, so you'll need to focus on cracking through those in the last 2 weeks before the exams.

Hope that helps

Agree with this. The Kaplan notes are excellent but I would supplement certain areas with a read of the ICAEW notes.

For case study, I wouldn't bother with the ICAEW notes though, just the TI papers.

As annah said, get your file ready now and use it in your mocks and practice questions.

A word of advice on case study - be strict (and I mean STRICT) with your timings. You need to spend the same amount of time on each requirement. July 2010 requirement 1 was particularly time pressured and many failed because of this - they spent too much time on it

Hiii
I dont know if this post is still active or not jus trying my luck...
I am planning to give my advanced stage papers on November 2011.I stay in glasgow and am really surprised that there is no coaching offered by kaplan or the likes here.
I am really worried as i have hardly 2 months and can surely do with whatever guidance i can get from you guys.
I am an Indian CA working towards completing my qualification here.I have a few queries i would like help with
- Where can i get kaplan materials for preperation.they dont run coaching in my city.
- Is 2 n half months sufficient time to attempt all three papers.i am not working so i have all day to prepare
-any recommended books for tax...i find that the most difficult as its completely diff from way back in India..n lets admit it i hate tax)
any help will be greeeeeeatly appreciated

Good luck with your Advanced stage papers! If you head over to our student forum at www.icaew.com/studentcommunity there is currently a post discussing the November Advanced stage papers, which might be of interest to you, and you can also access 'Ask a Tutor' sessions for top revision tips and advice. There are lots of other ACA students on there so you should hopefully find it helpful!